Key GOP debate results, Israel alleges sexual violence by Hamas

The Israel-Sofia conflict: Hamas attacks on civilians in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 200, 000, and 7, and killed in the last 30 days

“It seems one of the reasons they don’t want to turn women over that they’ve been holding hostage, and the reason this pause fell apart, is they don’t want those women to be able to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller at a press briefing Monday.

A cease-fire between Israel and Hamas allowed for the release of more than 100 hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Health officials in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip say that about 16,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since Oct. 7. They don’t break out the number of Hamas fighters, but they say most of the dead are women and children.

And in a Wednesday letter to the U.N. Security Council about the dangers faced by civilians in Gaza, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres acknowledged the Oct. 7 allegations. “Accounts of sexual violence during the attacks are appalling,” he wrote.

“Atrocious forms of sexual violence need to be thoroughly investigated. We owe the victims justice and we need to make sure that happens.

Israel has accused the U.N. of being slow to respond to and condemn allegations of sexual violence against women on Oct. 7 by Hamas fighters. Israel says it collected more than 1,500 eyewitness accounts of rape or evidence of sexual violence from Hamas attacks. Hamas denies its fighters were involved in sexual violence.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations said “these were not just sick, spur-of-the-moment decisions to destroy Israeli women and girls.” This was planned. This was planned a long time ago. This was instructed.”

The evidence of sexual violence on Oct. 7, Israel says, is overwhelming: Witness accounts of militants raping women; bodies of women discovered with their clothes removed; others shot through the head and the breast.

“Many young women arrived in bloody, shredded rags, or just in underwear, and their underwear was often very bloody,” Mendes recalled. A leader of her unit “saw several female soldiers who were shot in the crotch, intimate parts, vagina, or shot in the breast” in what “seemed to be a systematic genital mutilation of a group of victims,” Mendes added.

The extent of the atrocities witnessed at the base where the dead were taken for identification stunned the staff, according to a member of the Israeli reserve unit.

A first responder at a kibbutz told Israeli officials that they encountered the body of a woman in the shower of a home with her hands tied, Reichert said. A video played before the U.N. audience describes how bullet wounds to women’s breasts and genitals of men and women alike is how a first responders sees gunshot wounds. In another video, a woman described as a survivor of the rave attack said she witnessed multiple men rape the same woman, then mutilate her.

A survivor from the Nova rave, a music festival where hundreds of young people were killed, told responders that “everything was an apocalypse of corpses,” with dead women who were missing clothes, Reichert said.

Israel’s case at the U.N.: Firsthand accounts of injuries seen on the victims of the Oct. 7 attack – a United Nations official recalls the testimony of a volunteer rescue worker

Yael Reichert, a superintendent of an Israeli national police unit, recounted testimony from survivors of the attacks and first responders who witnessed the immediate aftermath.

Greiniman stood in front of him so he could hear the voices of the women who were no longer with him.

She was not wearing clothes. He was very emotional, and hesitating between words, as he described that she had nails and different objects in her female organs. “She was abused in a way we could not understand and could not deal with.”

Simcha Greiniman, a volunteer rescue worker who helped collect bodies on Oct. 7, recounted discovering the body of a woman laying on the floor of her home.

At the U.N. on Monday, testimony from three Israelis — a police officer, a first responder and a member of a morgue team that processed bodies — described and listed details of Israel’s case.

The pressure on United Nations officials was raised after the session on Monday that included firsthand accounts of injuries they saw on the bodies of victims.

The Up First Podcast: Up First Briefing: Key GOP debate takeaways; Israel alleges sexual violence by Hamas [Up First briefing: key gop debate takeaway: key-gop-debate takea

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Source: Up First briefing: Key GOP debate takeaways; Israel alleges sexual violence by Hamas

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